Despite the dangers and resultant injuries, Garrison was having the time of his life. Every day was a new challenge, a new adventure, just what he’d hoped to find in life “in the other realm” and never had. He was living the novel he had always wanted to write, and the willowy, drop-dead gorgeous heroine of the story was his girl.
Garrison inhaled on the cigarette, staring out to sea.
He’d slain a dragon, fought monsters, been instructed in the use of a blade by a master swordsman, done all lands of neat stuff and met the greatest girl ever. The business of almost dying twice he could have done without, but one had to take the bad with the good.
By the same token, the venture in which he was engaged was deadly serious business, the fate of all of Creath in the balance, not to mention his own life and, most importantly, the life of the woman he loved.
“The woman I love,” Garrison murmured to the dark waters, saying the words very slowly so that he could savor them.
From beside him, he heard Swan’s voice. “Who is she, the woman that you love, Al’An?”
Garrison snapped the cigarette into the water, turned around and took Swan into his arms. “Who is she! Are you going to just magically appear without warning all the time? And, this virgin thing. Let me tell you! It’s driving me nuts, Swan. Who do you think’s the woman I love?”
“Me?”
“You know it, darling,” Garrison whispered to her. He drew Swan’s body tightly against his own, looked into her eyes, then put his mouth to a better use than talking.
“The six of us are all that will be required, and any more people will just get in the way. That’s assuming, Bre’Gaa, that you really do want to come.”
“If you wish me to, Gar’Ath.”
“You’d be an asset,” Mitan declared. “A definite asset.”
“Then we are six,” Erg’Ran announced.
Garrison took a cigarette from his pack, but replaced it before Swan could light it or the pack magically refilled itself. There was no ashtray in Bre’Gaa’s cabin. “If there were seven of us, we could saddle up and go out and save a Mexican village from banditos. But I’m not gonna be the guy who shaves his head.”
Erg’Ran just looked at him. “What in Creath are you talking about, Champion?”
“Cross-cultural reference to my world. You couldn’t be into Yul Brynner movies, so don’t worry about it.”
“As you say, Champion. I shall not worry, nor do I believe that any head shaving will be required.”
“Then, I won’t worry either.” Quickly trying to redeem himself after the absurdly obscure reference to the classic western had made him sound like an idiot, Garrison asked, “Is everything planned for the diversions? I missed a lot while I was recuperating.”
“See this chart, Al’An,” Bre’Gaa said, rolling it out across the nearly waist high table at the center of his cabin. “We ply these coasts regularly looking for whatever we may find to plunder.” Bre’Gaa’s middle finger, nearly as long and thick as a small banana, traced along an impossibly rugged looking outline of Edge Land. “My crew knows every inlet where there’s depth enough that the Storm Raider won’t run aground. All of the tides—high, low, neap—are as familiar to us as our names. My first officer is working with your Bin’Ah and the commanders of the Enchantress’s other vessels. Short of the use of powerful magic against a widely dispersed array of targets all at once, which the Enchantress tells me is impossible, Eran will never be able to catch us. She can second-sight us all she wants, and I hope that she does. That will just keep her infernal Horde of Koth in constant motion. The Queen Sorceress will have no way of knowing where we’ll strike, where we’ll land, if we’ll strike or if we’ll land.”
Garrison was concerned about what seemed to him an obvious flaw in the plan. He asked about it. “Bre’Gaa mentioned the second-sight. I’ve been thinking about that. What if Swan’s mother second-sights every ship in the armada and doesn’t find her daughter, or Erg’Ran—doesn’t find any of the six of us? Isn’t she going to get suspicious?”
“My sister probably will be suspicious,” Erg’Ran agreed. “However, not to worry, Champion. First of all, as you may have noticed or may not have realized, the second-sight allows one to view at great distances in exquisite detail. It does not allow one to see through walls, however. Even if Eran were to use a bird through which to project her second-sight, to see inside this cabin aboard this ship the bird would have to be inside the cabin. The only exception to that would be if the structure—in this case, the Storm Raider—were protected by a guarding spell. Only the person who had initiated the guarding spell would then be able to second-sight through walls.”
Garrison nodded. “I get it, then, I think. We make it obvious that the six of us are inside this cabin, in the hope that she does second-sight us, or is second-sighting us now. Then, somehow, we slip out the back.”
“Actually, with magic, which I will be able to use because my mother’s attentions will be so much divided and her magic cannot be used to accomplish two tasks at once,” Swan supplied.
“Aye, and we hope that our naval diversions keep the Queen Sorceress so busy that indeed we can get inside Barad’Il’Koth and get ourselves out again,” Gar’Ath declared. “At least, it sounds simple. I like that.”
Garrison laughed. “Everything sounds simple, unless Erg’Ran is telling us about it.”
“Champion!”
Garrison clapped the older man on the back. “Only joking, my friend. Only joking.” He looked at the others, then threw out the question, “How’s this little raid of ours supposed to work, guys?”
“My magical energy,” Swan began, “was severely depleted, as you know, but is almost completely restored; this occurred much more rapidly than I had supposed that it might, Al’An. I have no idea why. But it should be easy enough for me to place shift us from Bre’Gaa’s cabin to Barad’Il’Koth, although whether or not I will be able to place shift the six of us all at once remains to be seen.
“Despite the diversions,” Swan went on, “my mother might still sense us arriving; but I doubt that she will be alert to what we are about. She should be too busy to notice.”
“How about getting out of Barad’Il’Koth when we’ve done what we need to do? Especially if—by some quirk of circumstance, let’s say—your mother somehow does catch on to us being there,” Garrison persisted.
“We will have some options, Al’An,” Swan assured him. “Magic would certainly be one of the options. Others may prove more viable. We’ll simply have to determine our means of escape after we’ve accomplished what must be done.”
Garrison told Swan and the others, “There’s a wonderful old expression where I come from, about doing something by the seat of the pants.” Garrison looked around the cabin before saying anything else. Bre’Gaa wore a great kilt, Erg’Ran a monkish robe. Gar’Ath was dressed in a brown leather jerkin, dark green tights and knee boots. Mitan was attired in next to nothing, as usual (a bra-like top and matching short skirt of brown leather, boots to her thighs and lots of edged weapons). Swan wore a full-skirted, floor-length charcoal grey dress.
“By the seat of the pants?” Erg’Ran repeated quizzically.
“Oh, never mind.”
Swan could not bring herself to be as scantily attired as Mitan. Mitan looked wonderfully pretty that way, but Swan would have felt so self-conscious that she wouldn’t be able to think straight. And think straight she must if they were to accomplish their mission at Barad’Il’Koth and have any hope of getting out alive.
Swan compromised, magically attiring herself in traditional male clothing. She wore a full-sleeved white blouse, a black leather jerkin, black stockings and black knee boots. Swan belted her sword at her waist, swinging aside her hair, which was done in a single heavy braid extending well below her waist.
Using a little magic which she hoped that she could spare, Swan made a full-length looking glass appear. Dressing like a man made her feel silly, but it was practi
cal under the circumstances. And there was a certain land of almost wicked fun just in doing it.
The dagger, which she usually carried under her skirts, she sheathed at her right side in such a manner that it could be drawn conveniently with either hand.
Swan wheeled around so that she could see herself more fully, trying to convince herself that at least, had she really been trying, she could have made a convincing looking boy—except for the braid, of course. Resignedly, Swan just shrugged her shoulders. Even her shoulders looked obviously too little. She looked like a girl, a girl trying unsuccessfully to look like a boy. “Oh, well,” Swan sighed acceptingly.
Swan still felt self-conscious about her legs. The stockings revealed every curve and contour of them. She made a long black cloak appear, which she threw over her shoulders. That’s better.” The cloak restored at least a glimmer of decorum and made her look a little bigger in the shoulders (she tried to convince herself). She made the mirror vanish.
She’d used Bre’Gaa’s offered cabin in which to change, and she wandered about it while she waited for the others to arrive. The diversions were already underway, all six ships moving to different positions along the coast of Edge Land.
The Gle’Ur’Gya vessel was certainly much more comfortable than the tiny ships to which she was accustomed. That one person aboard the vessel could have living quarters as comparatively capacious as these was fantastic. There was a comfortable looking bed; she’d seen to Al’An s healing while he’d slept in it. There was a chamber pot, a washbasin. She glanced casually at her reflection in a burnished copper plate over the basin. There were cupboards and cabinets. There were books aplenty, and scrolls. The map of Edge Land’s coast was attractively illuminated. The Gle’Ur’Gya weren’t the uncivilized brutes she’d always thought of them being.
Swan had never tried place shifting six living things at once, and she still felt a little nervous about something going wrong. Inside her head, she rehearsed what she must do, but her eyes were wandering over charts and instruments used for plotting courses. The Gle’Ur’Gya were talented seafarers, to be sure. After what was about to transpire, if she lived, she would make it her business to once and for all see to it that there was peace between the Gle’Ur’Gya and her own people.
There was a polite knock at the door. “Please come in,” Swan called out.
Mitan entered, followed by Gar’Ath, Erg’Ran, Captain Bre’Gaa and Al’An, Al’An wearing his sword and carrying his shield, but without a cloak. Before leaving her alone to change, Al’An had asked, “If I gave you a description, do you think you could make me something called a sweater? This greatcape is nice and warm, but I’m not used to moving around in one.”
The “sweater” turned out to be easy enough to magically fabricate for him. Once he described the process—he called it knitting—by which it was made, she had the general idea clearly in mind. Although she hadn’t mentioned her observation to Al’An, she felt that the green sweater went rather poorly with the rest of his clothes (which were blue), not to mention clashing with the leather harness for his firespitters.
Al’An came up to her, kissed her lightly on the lips, and, as he held her, whispered, “You look cute.” It took an eyeblink to comprehend “cute” and, when she did, Swan smiled.
They all assembled at the center of Bre’Gaa’s cabin. “I don’t think that we’ll have any problems,” Swan told them, “but I’d be remiss not to remind all of you that I’ve never performed a place-shifting spell for six people all at once. If I have any reason to believe that there will be any problems, I’ll stop at once and send us out two or three at a time.”
“Do you have any idea where we’ll arrive?” Mitan asked.
Swan answered, “We all studied the sketch which Erg’Ran made for us of the interior of Barad’Il’Koth as he remembers it, and you, Mitan, as well as Erg’Ran and I have second-sighted Barad’Il’Koth’s exterior. I think that I can make us arrive somewhere safe. I’m hoping that we’ll be in the anteroom to my mother’s great hall. From there, if Erg’Ran has recalled correctly, we will have direct access to all of the main passageways within the keep.”
“I believe that I speak for us all,” Erg’Ran announced. “We are ready.”
Swan merely nodded.
Swan outstretched her arms, her hands grasping for the magic in the air around her, feeling its current surging through her body, strengthening her. She uttered the words of the place-shifting spell. Swan pressed her palms together between her breasts, becoming one with the energy around her.
Light, dazzlingly bright, filled her, exploded from her. There was a sound, soft, like the rumble of thunder heard at a great distance.
A darkness that glowed like light but was neither light nor dark was all around Swan and the others. The glowing darkness lingered, nothing replacing it. For an eyeblink, Swan’s concentration nearly failed her, as she feared that somehow, in some way, she had made a mistake. There was a light again, and Swan beheld bleak stone walls on either side of her, smoldering tapers going on and on, endlessly into darkness. When she looked around, Al’An, Erg’Ran, Mitan, Gar'Ath and Bre’Gaa were with her.
They were inside Barad’Il’Koth, but not where they should have been.
“Where are we?” Mitan whispered, voicing Swan’s own concern.
“Not the anteroom,” Erg’Ran declared. “This is the passageway leading between the barracks for the Horde of Koth household guard and the keep itself. Down a hundred swordlengths or so there is an additional passageway, which leads to the barracks for the Sword of Koth. That is on the right. On the left, another passageway leads to the main stables. The passageways are here in order to facilitate movement between the principal structures within the fortress in the event of attack. They are chiefly used, however, when the snows are too heavy above.”
Gar’Ath, sword in hand, asked, “And, to the keep?”
“That way, swordsman.” Erg’Ran jerked his thumb in the opposite direction from which they were faced.
“I’m sorry,” Swan announced. “I must have misjudged.”
Al’An took her hand, telling her sincerely, “Hey, we’re inside, we’re not surrounded by bad guys and we know which direction to go in. You did great, darling.”
Swan smiled and kissed Al’An’s cheek, then drew her sword.
They began moving along the passageway, Swan following close behind Erg’Ran who led the way, Al’An beside her. Erg’Ran’s axe was lashed to the girdle at his waist, a sword in his right hand. For the first time, Swan truly noticed the sword. She touched at Erg’Ran’s shoulder and he glanced back at her. “Is that your father’s sword, uncle?”
“Indeed, Enchantress. The very same.”
Swan understood why he carried it, and a chill ran along her spine at the very prospect of encountering her mother.
Periodically, as they crept along the dank passageway, they would stop, Swan and Mitan second- sighting ahead and behind them. Each time, they spied no sign of life and continued along their route.
“We near the keep, Enchantress,” Erg’Ran announced after a time.
Gar’Ath whispered hoarsely, “Let Mitan and me go ahead, Enchantress. She can second-sight for danger, and if there is any...”
Al’An volunteered, “That’s a good idea, but I’m going with. If there is a trap, my firespitters might be the only way out, assuming that they work.” Al’An didn’t wait for her approval, and Swan secretly liked that. “Bre’Gaa?”
“Yes, Al’An?” Bre’Gaa responded.
“Would you keep an eye out behind us? If there’s a trap, the logical thing would be for them to close us off from both ends of the corridor.”
“The minions of the Queen Sorceress will only reach the Enchantress over the corpses of Erg’Ran and myself. Be assured of that.”
“You guys wait a little while so that we have a head start,” Al’An told them.
“Al’An—be careful,” Swan heard herself saying to him.
&nbs
p; When they were still fifty yards or so from what looked to be the end of the passageway, Garrison, Gar’Ath and Mitan stopped, so that Mitan could second-sight. “There is a chamber beyond the passageway,” Mitan whispered. “This is very bad, very bad.”
Alan Garrison failed to grasp the cause for such enthusiasm. “What do you mean?”
“Come ahead, but quietly, Champion, and you and Gar’Ath will see.”
They continued to the end of the passageway. It had seemed to go on forever. Looking at his watch was useless in Creath, of course, but Garrison guessed that Swan, Erg’Ran and Bre’Gaa would be about ten minutes behind them.
The passageway opened onto a low-ceilinged, pie-wedge-shaped chamber—narrow where Garrison, Gar’Ath and Mitan lurked in hiding, gradually widening toward a very high, arched opening at the far side.
There was absolutely nothing on the chamber’s floor. But, at regular intervals along the chamber’s walls were mounted a succession of sculptures, grotesquely shaped icons which resembled horribly shaped miniature humans about the size of small monkeys, all of them naked, with huge, bulging eyes.
“I had heard that the Queen Sorceress had done this, but I was unbelieving of it.”
Garrison looked at Mitan. “Unbelieving of what? They’re just ugly little statues, right?”
Gar’Ath answered for her. “They are Tree Demons which the Queen Sorceress has spell-changed.”
“She turned them to stone?” Garrison asked.
“Yes, but they still live and will know when we pass them and they will attack us,” Mitan told him.
“Tree Demons were the things which nearly got Erg’Ran and his father years ago, right?” Garrison asked.
“They are some of the evil creatures which, before the Queen Sorceress undertook to destroy Creath, lived only in the deepest recesses of the forests,” Gar’Ath informed Garrison. “I was attacked by such creatures, as you know, but was able to speed past them, suffering little injury.”
“What do they do? Bite?” Garrison queried.
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